.

THE METAL EMPEROR.
We stood at the edge of a well whose walls were of that same green vaporous iridescence through which we had just come, but finer grained, compact; as though here the corpuscles of which they were woven were far closer spun.

Thousands of feet above us the mighty cylinder uprose, and in the lessened circle that was its mouth I glimpsed the bright stars; and knew by this it opened into the free air.
All of half a mile in diameter was this shaft, and ringed regularly along its height by wide amethystine bands--like rings of a hollow piston.

They were, in color, replicas of that I had glimpsed before our descent into this place and against whose gleaming cataracts the outlines of the incredible city had lowered.

And they were in motion, spinning smoothly, and swiftly.
Only one swift glance I gave them, my eyes held by a most extraordinary--edifice--altar--machine--I could not find the word for it--then.
Its base was a scant hundred yards from where we had paused and concentric with the sides of the pit.